Page 59

“I’m sorry.”

It’s all I can think to whisper. I’m a horrible liar and the evidence is in plain sight. Logan wipes the table with renewed vigor, his jaw squared, and Dad is kneading his forehead, a vein lancing through his temple. Mom snaps her hands to her side like I’ve poisoned her.

“Ah,” she says lightly. “Sorry. Were you on a date with that boy, maybe? I hope he’s treating you well and not taking advantage of you. Did he at least apologize for what he did to Logan’s face?”

I want to scrounge together an excuse. Something to explain away my actions. But I don’t have one, other than that I went along with Aaron’s whims to get him off my back. “I’m sorry,” I repeat numbly, the words thick in my throat. I’m trembling with embarrassment. “I should’ve kept my phone on me…We stopped by the carnival…I shouldn’t have gone…I’ll clean everything up…”

“You don’t have to do that,” Mom says, tapping the tip of my nose. “You must be frustrated. What you’re going through isn’t easy. But you don’t need to run to him every time you’re upset, okay? You can come to us, too. We’ll be here for you.”

For the first time, a spark of annoyance flickers in my chest. It’s a common broken promise I hear from them, and it’s only gotten worse with time as I’ve aged and learned how to take care of my issues. “Aaron is the only one who’s been actively trying to help me remember the past year,” I say, my voice as shaky as the rest of me. “He’s the only one who’s been there for me since I got home. I know you’re all busy with work and school, and I know you’re trying to pretend like everything is normal so I don’t get overwhelmed, but I need a little more than that.”

My parents exchange a hesitant look, and I know immediately they’ve spoken about this. “We’re sorry, Riley,” Dad says softly. “We thought we were obeying the doctor’s orders by keeping our distance and following our routines.”

“All you’re doing is leaving me in the dark,” I say. Something dribbles down my middle finger, and I realize I’ve dug my nail so deeply into my skin that I’ve broken it. “You’re all pretending like nothing happened. You’re vague when I ask questions. I didn’t know I joined a history club or that I moved out. Do you have pictures of me from the past year? Did I go to prom? Where were we for Christmas? What was my grad ceremony like? Did you come with me to look at campuses? Why…”

I steer my watery eyes to Logan.

“Why wasn’t I wearing my seat belt?”

Logan’s face drains of color, causing it to look like a ghostly white sheet. My mom’s eyes are glassy with tears. When nobody answers right away, all of them clearly weighing how to respond or how much they should say, the frustration mounts in my body. My temperature rises with it, and suddenly, I feel my blood simmering. Not boiling. Not yet.

“I’m sorry for making bad decisions, but you aren’t helping,” I croak. “I’m sorry I missed your texts. I’ll do better. I’ll clean the rest of this up as an apology. But Aaron is the only one who—”

“Riley, come on,” Logan mutters. “Can’t you read the room a little? The reason nobody’s saying much is because we don’t want you to reexperience all the bad decisions you made over the past year. Because all of them involve him.”

“Leave it alone, Logan,” Dad snaps at him, to which he shrugs.

“I’m just telling him the truth, like he wants. He literally let that piece of shit convince him to move out, so—”

“Enough,” Mom says, her voice firming in a way I haven’t heard in years. She turns back to me with a frail smile, and says, “I’m sorry we haven’t been there for you as much as we should be, honey. It’s all a bit new to us. We haven’t been sure how to handle the situation. Now that we know how you feel, we’ll be better. Okay?”

Just like that, the conversation is over. Mostly because I’m too sapped of physical and mental energy to pursue it beyond this point. I guess I should be grateful they’re listening to me, but they’ve always struggled on follow-through, and I’m too nauseous from Logan’s words to point that out to them.

All the bad decisions you made…

“Okay,” I say flatly. “Sorry.”

Mom pokes my nose. Dad comes over to ruffle my hair. They try to continue cleaning up, but I shoo them away, because finishing is the least I can do to make up for my absence. They can tell I’m not in the mood to argue, so they reluctantly bid me good night and head upstairs to bed, until it’s just Logan and me. We eye each other for a moment before he says, “You had fun?”

He doesn’t ask it bitingly, but it stings anyway. I drop my gaze to the floor.

“I’m sorry if it felt like I was cornering you,” he says. “I think I’m just still bitter about…this.” He gestures vaguely at his black eye. “Want to do something tomorrow? It’ll be Saturday, so no classes or work.”

He doesn’t want me to see Aaron again. I wasn’t planning on it, since Aaron is booked up with projects. I shrug, and that’s that.

I spend the next hour cleaning up mindlessly, and I don’t realize I’m ungloved and unmasked until the tail end of my counter scrubbing. Maybe it’s fine. Maybe it doesn’t matter that I’ve been gnawing on my index finger with the hand I was just using to sweep cake crumbs into the trash can.

Naturally, I wake up in the middle of the night racked with tremors, my stomach in knots, my body pulsing like it did when I fell off the chair. My joints hurt. I can’t focus on anything, like I’m looking at the world through a disorienting haze. My head is on fire.

I’m sick.

I spend Saturday in bed curled up, falling in and out of sleep while my family hangs around the house. Mom checks on me a few times, sitting on my bed and brushing my hair, clearly attempting to follow through on her wish to be there for me more often. I can’t find the energy to hold a conversation, but she doesn’t seem to mind. Logan comes to refill my water every so often, which is nice, and Dad brings me a warm compress for my aching abdomen.

I’ve had hours to think about last night, and I’m realizing I feel more annoyed than guilty. They should’ve told me they needed these things done in advance. Do I always need to be at their beck and call? Why do they constantly wait until the last minute to text me their needs? I mean, I know why, and it’s not intentional, but why can’t they try a little harder not to be so scattered?

I get a selfie from Aaron in the middle of the day. He’s in his overalls and a pair of safety glasses and gloves. He’s holding a trowel up against a wall smeared with plaster and he’s captioned it Filling the holes in my heart with your love.

It’s so pathetic that I snort with laughter, and briefly, my unyielding pain becomes a distant hum. Wrong number, I respond.